As we reported here, nearly as week after the 60th annual Grammy Awards aired the show is still very much a hot topic. Initially, viewer complaints harped primarily on the lack of diversity among winners, specifically a poor celebration of nominees that were female and/or people of color. However, once the Grammy president – Neil Portnow – weighed in on the backlash with some interestingly worded remarks the fallout shifted to him directly.
Taking to press, Portnow indicated women needed to ‘step up’ in order to see more inclusion – a statement most believe insinuated he thinks their contributions were less worthy of recognition than their male counterparts. Sending shockwaves throughout the industry, female artists like P!nk, India Arie, Katy Perry, and Vanessa Carlton immediately sprung to action, with the latter even promoting a petition which aims to see him relieved of his leadership position in the Recording Academy.
As if that’s not enough, female executives – including some of Portnow’s own cohorts – are calling for similar action. Details inside:
Neil Portnow/Photo Credit: Getty Images
As of time reported, the petition calling for Portnow’s resignation has nearly reached its 14,000 signature goal (click here to see). Add to this, some of his female colleagues are also putting pressure on the Recording Academy for him to step down. CNN reported an open letter was issued by a coalition of female music executives which read:
“We step up every single day and have been doing so for a long time. The fact that you don’t realize this means it’s time for you to step down,” the letter reads. “Today we are stepping up and stepping in to demand your resignation.”
In an attempt to extinguish the flames set by his inflammatory remarks, Portnow not only issued an apology for his word choice (which can be read here), but he also announced the creation of a new task force at the Recording Academy designed to promote “female advancement.”
It was too little too late. The final version of the letter included a statement that read:
“Your attempt to backpedal only emphasizes your refusal to recognize us and our achievements. Your most recent remarks do not constitute recognition of women’s achievements, but rather a call for men to take action to ‘welcome’ women,” the letter read.
Y’all “step up” everyday but y’all have the lowest numbers ever and the worst material to date. And you can’t name streaming because some of y’all don’t get streamed anyway. Woman in music have turned posing on Instagram and vloging on YouTube into their main album promo yet wonder why they fail. Woman create the same songs over and over and wonder why they fail. Woman of the past understood that as a woman of any color or race you had to work harder than a man. These new age female artists think everything should be handed to them because someone else did the work before them.
Thank you! Agreed with everything you say. The quality of music by men surpass woman vastly. I can’t think of one female artist that makes QUALITY material other than Adele.
If you think Adele is the only female artist making quality music then you are tone deaf and dumb
Lemonade by Beyoncé at Metacritic – 92
25 by Adele at Metacritic – 75
You are way wrong, girl.
This should not be an issue. He wasn’t being sexist in fact ten years ago it was the women that were leading everything and garnering the most recognition and people were saying the men needed to step it up.
And can they add more established rb females to perform other than the usual females like Beyonce, Rihanna, Alicia, Jennifer Hudson, Nicki Minaj and ciara
Women need their own categories in the grammies like they had 10 years ago. Merging male and female competitors was a bad decision. More urban artists need to be booked by the Grammy committee to perform. That is the main reason why the show loses the number of viewers every year despite the population inccreasing every year.
Wow I feel so bad for this man. I wholeheartedly feel he didn’t meant any harm by his statement. All he was saying was that woman need to bring out more music. There was hardly any major female releases last year so I don’t know what they expected. To be norminated you have to actually bring out music. And news flash, Adele just won all the big awards last year.
Most female artist are too caught trying to be bad bishes and 80% of their focus is their image and not their music. So yes, woman in
Music do have to step it up.
Adele won just because she was white and did safe, mediocre music, you dumb shith*le.
#Facts She’s talented, but the hype around her newer material is too much! 19 is still her best album, IMO! She’s got great tracks on all of her releases, but she was definitely voted for because of sales. It needs to be a vote about overall quality, substance, risk, and popularity!
2017 was clearly the year of female (mainly Pop female) flopping. Your music just wasn’t good that year and even the billboard chart shown it. R&B female artist been ignore for a good decade at the grammys (and with sales) and these artist didn’t care, but now the flop crossed over to them and now they mad. Adele just won AOTY last year, so sit down and like the man said, step it up.
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As for Lord, blame Taylor Swift for taking your sound and watering down. You’re not special anymore, even Gomez is going your sound.
Agreed. Though I will say how the Grammys ignored Kelly Clarksons new album is beyond me cause it was R&B/Pop/Soul fire.
I agree, but Lorde’s ‘Melodrama’ is still better than anything Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez ever released. ‘Reputation’ is selling on Taylor’s name alone, because that album is trash, specially after ‘1989’.
CeCe Winans won 2 Grammys this year. She’s black and female. And she released one of the purest records last year. Gospel or not. She could have easily delivered a epic Grammy performance and it could have been a great chance to honor Whitney.
You know they love to look over gospel until one of the favorite R&B/pop/rap “legends” die, then they’ll turn each and every award ceremony into a COGIC convocation service.
It’s not Neil’s fault! People can vote and actually do vote on nominees. This has been stressed many times. If you like a song, album, writer, artist or whatever – join the committee and cast a vote! This has nothing to do with whether you are born female or male. Also, your gender should not give you a free pass in becoming nominated. I saw females winning and being nominated. There was a time when the industry was screaming “GIRL POWER!!”, and Britney, Spice Girls, Christina A., TLC, Destiny Child, Brandy, Monica, Leanne Rymes, Beyonce etc. was winning Grammys over the men. I don’t remember male artists taking these losses as discrimination. The time they are spending trying to put this man out of work, they should spend on writing an actual hit song! …I’m just saying, maybe it will be nominated next year!
But none os those artists actually won the BIG, important categories…
They just pot women to win below the line Grammys… unless you have huge sales and make safe or mediocre music to the ears of old, white, male voters – like Adele and Taylor Swift.
How can rb females other than the ones who are always called on stand a chance far as being successful, when they are not granted a chance to perform and promote their album on the biggest night for music, we been stuck up under Beyonce and Rihanna a s s so much we can’t appreciate other r&b female acts and what they put out, and Beyonce has the higher power she don’t want no competition, you can’t tell me she has first dibs and control, what other females are aloud to perform on the same ticket
I will say this if there was one thing other than her voice Whitney was good for it was using her platform to showcase other black women/girls. I guess when you know you’re the best at what you do you don’t mind sharing the spotlight and letting others shine. I mean what other female artist of Whitney’s caliber have we seen readily volunteer to sing backing vocals for another female like she did when she sang back up for Bebe and Cece on the arsenio hall show.
Has NOTHING to do with anything. I wouldn’t want anyone else on stage with Bey because it would completely F*** up the performance. The girls around Whitney at least had some kind of work ethic but not these heaux of today.
Black women are winning and music so the white women want to cause problems with the board……. India Arie is an idiot black women are winning in music except it